


Orange Juice

by remembertowrite



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Awkwardness, Flash Fic, Fluff, M/M, Rated T only for swears, Teen Romance, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6713437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembertowrite/pseuds/remembertowrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trembling fingertips humming with a rosy orange ghost across his own, and it reminds Caleb of Saturday mornings as a kid, when his dad made pancakes and he and his sister sat guffawing at the morning’s cartoons.</p><p>Based on a Tumblr prompt: "Things you said too quietly."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orange Juice

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [my Tumblr](http://surely-you-jess.tumblr.com/post/143669891438/things-you-said-too-quietly-pairing-of-your) on April 30, 2016.

Trembling fingertips humming with a rosy orange ghost across his own, and it reminds Caleb of Saturday mornings as a kid, when his dad made pancakes and he and his sister sat guffawing at the morning’s cartoons. He’d felt a lazy contentment wash over his father, an indolent warmth the color of orange juice that Dr. B had helped pin down as a kind of love.

What a fucking stupid word. Caleb has felt the storm of teenage hormone bullshit, the drama of who’s macking on which cheerleader; he’s felt rather than seen the soft smiles that pass between his parents, and at his cousin’s wedding last year, he’d almost passed out from the sickening loudness of the sweet pinks and reds. Love is a big, big emotion, and a four-letter word hardly seems enough to encapsulate it. It’s the feeling that has you plunging headfirst off the high dive, except the diving board is on the edge of a 150-foot cliff, and there are tons of rocks at the bottom.

So Caleb recognizes the feeling almost immediately as a surge of deep reds pollutes the quiet, pleasant oranges of Adam’s presence. It’s like when his mom dropped a bottle of red wine on the white living room carpet. It’s dark, it stains, it’s a magnet for attention like nothing else in his surroundings.

Adam mumbles his way through some words, and it’s said under his breath, too quietly, as if he’s really only addressing himself.

“What’d you say?” Caleb asks, and even though he knows, he still tries to let Adam contextualize his feelings before making assumptions.

There’s no way Caleb can make an assumption about this (even if he knows, even if his certainty of the feeling is as great as his belief that the team is going to curbstomp the fuck out of Colsville West this Friday).

“It’s not important, just forget it,” Adam mumbles.

And too quickly Adam wrenches his hand from Caleb’s, and the velvety red curls into the stormy gray of insecurity, and Caleb feels like an asshole. He _is_ an asshole, because he more than anyone else knows how Adam operates. Adam is sensitive; his mood is a coin toss. Sometimes he’s sad as shit, and sometimes he’s cute as fuck and dragging Caleb by the wrist on some new excursion.

Of late it’s been more of the latter, come to think of it.

“Hey,” he calls after Adam. “Me too.”

Adam turns back, and holy shit he’s _blushing_ , to Caleb’s delight.

“You too what?” Adam calls back.

“I love you too, dude.”

And Caleb can’t tell which is the deeper red, Adam’s blush or his billowing emotions.


End file.
